Me and my Wesley are still not speaking. I know we will soon ’cos it don’t feel like we’ve split up or nothing. We’re just having a break on account of him doing my head right in big time.
I was just reading Cava-Sue’s Marie Claire magazine on the loo and it said, “All relationships need space to breathe sometimes” which I reckon is totally right. I need space all right, lots of it, this house is doing my nut in.
So I come home from Mr. Yolk tonight and I’m just halfway up the path when the front door swings open and my Aunty Glo trots out going, “Ooh, Shiraz, you’re in for a treat tonight! I brought round my karaoke machine and my new Singalonga-Motown Classics CD! Do you want stuff from the liquor store? Breezer or nothing?”
“No, you’re all right,” I said, gritting my teeth and walking into the living room where my mother was tuning up her vocal chords to “Love Really Hurts Without You” and my dad was in his chair eating chicken curry and fries out of the carton ’cos he often gets himself a takeaway on the way home from Goodmayes Social on Saturday afternoon and he’d dribbled curry sauce down his T-shirt and he looked like a bloody homeless. “Ooh all right lovey!” shouted my mother into the microphone, “Look what your Aunty Glo has brought us round!”
“Brilliant,” I said.
Aunty Glo ain’t my real aunty by the way. She’s just my mum’s mate who used to work with her when Mum was a cleaner years ago. I was describing Glo to Joshua Fallow the other day and he said he’s got randoms like that in his family too. Like this one bloke he calls Uncle Zac who works at the Guardian newspaper who ain’t his uncle at all, he’s just someone his dad was on crew with at the university.
I shut up after that. I didn’t want Josh to ask how my mum met Aunty Glo.
So anyway, I’m standing there watching my mother murdering “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” and thinking, “SO MUCH FOR BLOODY STUDYING TONIGHT,” when suddenly my phone vibrates in my pocket.
It was a text. A text from Uma Brunton-Fletcher.
U dn the Shkspr essay yet? Uma said.
I looked at it for a bit. Then typed back.
Not yt. 2nite. May B.
My phone bleeped again.
Wn 2 come and study at mine? it said.
Do I want to study with Uma Brunton-Fletcher?
I looked at my mother’s big mouth flapping open and shut.
OK—B rnd in 30 minuts. I typed.
Walking down to Uma’s carrying the Complete Works of Shakespeare under my arm felt proper weird. I felt embarrassed to be honest ’cos I’ve hardly spoke to Uma or nothing much in Sixth Form. I’ve been treating her a bit like everyone else does. Like I don’t really know why she’s there. I feel tight about that now. I didn’t even ask her to be in the “Increase the Peace” campaign, which was well shady, ’cos if anyone knows anything about rudes and violence and getting dragged into stuff it’s Uma.
I knocked on Uma’s door and stood for a while by the abandoned fridge and overturned shopping cart while Uma opened the six separate locks on her front door, and I’m thinking, “Great, this is all I need, I’m already bloody confused about Shakespeare, now I’m going to have to waste my Saturday night explaining it all to one of the biggest superchavs in Goodmayes.” Which is tight I know but I was in a bad mood.
“Y’all right,” said Uma.
“Y’all right,” I said, then I went inside.
Uma’s house was proper silent. No music or no family, no nothing. No one lives there any more except for Uma and Zeus. The whole place was proper clean and tidy. The kitchen was as neat as anything. Nothing like when her stepdad used to sell skunk. I sat on the sofa and enjoyed the total silence for a bit. Uma sat on the big chair, picked up a laptop, and plonked it on her knee.
“Hang on a sec, Shiz, I’m just playing poker. I’m up three hundred quid today so far,” she said, peering at the screen.
“You got WiFi broadband?!” I said, trying not to sound shocked.
“Next-door neighbors have,” said Uma. “They don’t put no password on it though.”
I laughed. Some things never change.
“Hang on,” I said. “Ain’t that one of the school’s laptops that got nicked last year?!”
Uma cringed a bit.
“Oh don’t bloody ask,” she groaned. “It was my Christmas present from Clinton.”
I took my trainers off and curled up on the sofa with Zeus cuddled into my legs and started reading my book. Uma finished her poker game and got us both a drink and then started surfing the Net looking for sites with AS-Level answers on “just to help us out a bit.”
“Where’s Carrie tonight?” said Uma, fiddling with her clown pendant and lighting up an Marlboro Red.
“With Saf, I reckon. She’s well loved up,” I said.
“Dat Saf is well choong though, innit,” said Uma, sighing a bit.
“Yep,” I said, “She’s well lucky.”
Uma thought for a bit.
“Dat Joshua is buff though too, ain’t he?” she said.
“Erm… I ain’t ever noticed really,” I said. Fibbing like anything.
Uma smiled to herself, then she goes, “I reckon Joshua Fallow is well into you, man.”
“Nah. No way,” I said, and my stomach felt all squelchy.
Uma stared at the screen for a while. Then she said, “Carrie Draper is proper blessed tho, ain’t she? She’s well lucky having that minted rich dad and that, ain’t she? She could have all his business one day if she wanted.”
I laughed a bit. Uma was bang on the money there.
“I dunno if she does want it though,” I said.
“Yeah,” said Uma, tapping her ciggie ashes in her cup, and blowing smoke down her nostrils, “She’s just like that Prince Hal in Henry IV Part One ain’t she? Y’know when Hal’s dad the King is jarring his head for him to buck his ideas up? That’s what this whole play’s about ain’t it? It’s about everything being there on a plate for you, but you can’t be bloody arsed.”
I looked at Uma for a bit then I started to laugh again.
“Yeah, it is a bit isn’t it?” I said.
We’re studying together later this week.